David Robert Wingate

Duane's take

The way the official marker tells it, here's the story of David Robert Wingate. Now, some men seem to have a particular arrangement with misfortune. David Robert Wingate was one of those men, and what makes his story worth telling is what he did every single time misfortune showed up.

He rebuilt. Born in 1819, Wingate was already a wealthy Mississippi sawmill owner by 1852, when he packed up his family and moved them to a large cotton plantation in Newton County, Texas. A man of means, a man of timber, a man who apparently could not resist the pull of fresh ground.

Then came the Civil War, 1861 to 1865, and Wingate did what men of his standing did. He donated lumber from his Sabine Pass sawmill to build Fort Sabine and other posts. He gave.

He contributed. And what did he get in return from the other side of that war? Federal troops burned his home and his business.

Not a setback. Not a loss. A burning.

That is the word the marker uses, and it deserves to sit there a moment. His home. His business.

Gone. Now here is where another man might have sat down in the ash and stayed there. Not Wingate.

By 1874 he had relocated to Orange, bought into a sawmill, and branched out into rice farming. Sawmill man to cotton planter to rice farmer. The man was not afraid of a new crop.

He served as county judge in Newton County and in Orange County both, so the community kept handing him responsibility, and he kept accepting it. The marker says he was plagued with fires and disasters. Plural.

That word, plagued, does some heavy lifting. It wasn't one bad season. It was a pattern, a recurring visitation of hard luck that would have broken most.

But Judge Wingate rebuilt his holdings every time, and the marker makes a point of adding that he continued to help others through all of it. He died in 1899. What he left behind wasn't just lumber and land.

It was the particular Texas stubbornness of a man who kept getting burned and kept picking up the hammer anyway.

What the marker says

(1819-1899) In 1852 wealthy Mississippi sawmill owner David Robert Wingate moved his family to a large cotton plantation in Newton County. During the Civil War (1861-65), he donated lumber from his Sabine Pass sawmill to build Fort Sabine and other posts. Federal troops burned his home and business. In 1874 he relocated in Orange, bought into a sawmill, and branched into rice farming. Wingate served as county judge in Newton and Orange counties. Although plagued with fires and disasters, Judge Wingate rebuilt his holdings and continued to help others.